The Storyteller of the Shire
by plumdarling
Summary: In the farthest corner of Hobbiton sits a storyteller, and at his feet sit the children. And he gives them such spectacular stories. For Bilbo Baggins, Storyteller of the Shire, as long as the children listen, he will tell them. For as long as Bilbo tells them, they have the most marvelous of adventures. A series of one-shots of the Company's adventures. Taking prompts/requests!
1. an introduction

_as stated before, here you shall find dearest bilbo and the many stories he detailed to the youths of the shire-each chapter shall be a different focus, so please expect no huge, drawn-out plots! the stories written shall mostly be inspired by separate little instances throughout our canon, ranging from riotous fun to character studies of a more somber nature (aka angst). when it comes to canon, i shall mostly be following book-canon, frequently drawing inspiration from both movie-canon and book. also, characterization of the more minor characters (in other words, most of our dwarven company) from the movie, shall be prevalent._

_yes, this fanfic is footnoted! i attempted to add in footnotes in certain areas where i referenced facts that may or may not be known to the reader, or when i'm unsure about certain things. please don't be afraid to correct me if i'm wrong! (i'm still looking for a beta, whoops!)_

_i literally own quite nothing in this story, save the arrangement of words._

* * *

i: an Introduction

"The oldest hobbit among us[1] and _still_ the same incorrigible codger as ever!" came the half-covetous, half-scathing mutter of one Lobelia Sackville-Baggins over the din and merry of the Hobbiton marketplace. Ushering her son[2] away from the small army of hobbit youth crowded at the feet of the very codger she had spoken of, the boy shot his mother a reproachful look.

"Can't I at least have a _little _listen to Mr. Bilbo's stories today, mama? It won't be long—and everyone _else _is there, too!" he pleaded whiningly, pouting in what he hoped was an endearing manner. (It wasn't, of course, but it was the best he could do. He was a Sackville-Baggins, remember.)

"Of course you may not!" snapped his mother, pinching her son by his pointy left year. "You are not everyone else! I shan't allow fraternization between you and the disgraceful _Brandybucks _and _Tooks _and _other relations _that crawl over our cousin's feet!"

As disagreeable as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was, "crawling" was quite probably the best description of what the excitable youths were doing—under the shade of a friendly old elm at the corner of the Shire's busy marketplace, a certain Peregrin Took (munching delightedly upon an apple and giggling incessantly through his chubby cheeks) was bouncing on Bilbo's left foot, and a Meriadoc Brandybuck was torturing Bilbo's right, pantomiming a grossly-exaggerated version of Bilbo's slaying of a Mirkwood spider. Meanwhile, Frodo Baggins (only a tween and nearly as tall as Bilbo already) had taken to impersonating a certain Dwarf-lord in the center of the group of youths gathered before Bilbo, puffing out his chest and declaring himself _Thorin son of Thror son of Thrain, King under the Mountain! _as the dozen-or-so children around him laughed and bowed in reverence to the mighty King of Erebor.

Little Samwise Gamgee, on the other hand, had just arrived after begging his father to let him join the other boy and girls instead of helping him carry home the large ham Master Bilbo had ordered them to purchase, and the poor young hobbit looked rather flustered to be lost amidst the babble of bowing hobbits. Yet as soon as Frodo spotted him, he grabbed Samwise by the sleeve and pulled him to the center as well. "C'mon, Sam! You shall be Balin, loyalest advisor to Erebor's King!"

Bilbo sat in a great sense of serenity as the children reenacted his infamous adventure around him, laughing heartily at the scene. "Now, now, Frodo-I'd be wary of claiming that title, else the original Thorin Oakenshield hears you and comes marching up here, back from the grave, quite cross that a _second _King Thorin exists!" At Bilbo's voice, the children's eyes lit in great anticipation—_is it time? Is it time for Mr. Baggins' infamous stories? _

Almost instantly, the wild rabble of laughing hobbit youths paying their respects to the King of Durin's folk became a quiet, neatly-seated circle of children, cross-legged and waiting—waiting for the story to begin. Frodo had crouched himself down directly to Bilbo's chair's right, and insisted that Sam sit next to him (blushing at the fact that one Rosie Cotton decided to kneel down at his side), while Merry pulled little Pippin into his lap[3], his sudden docility born of impatience to hear tales of dwarves and dragons and forgotten gold.

They never failed to give Bilbo such joy—the children and their wonderful smiles. A sense of amused fondness washed over him as he looked round the circle of little faces, framed by curls, with awed expectancy dancing in their eyes. Taking a deep breath, he put on an expression of confusion. "Well, I don't see what all of you young ones are waiting for!" he said, a smile teasing at the corner of his lips.

"Your adventure, Bilbo!" piped up Frodo eagerly, his bright eyes shining. "You know, your tale—your there and back again tale!"

"My tale?" Bilbo smiled in earnest. "My dear lad, haven't _you_ heard it enough times?"

"Yes, yes, but not _everyone _has! Have you, Sam?" Frodo elbowed Samwise's arm.

"Er—I suppose I have—" Sam began hesitantly, but at Frodo's expression, realized exactly what Frodo wished him to say. "B-But not all of it, Mr Bilbo, sir! Only a wee bit!"

"Then—I believe I have no chioce to tell all of it, then," Bilbo said heartily, and each little hobbit sat up just a bit straighter in elation. "Yet there are _many _stories in that particular adventure—"

"Start at the beginning, won't you, Mr Baggins!" came Merry's voice as little Pippin nodded furiously from his lap. "The beginning with all the dwarves in your dining-room! And with the King and his map!"

"I suppose I could, Meriadoc, but that isn't exacly the beginning—"

"_The _King? I thought there was another king!" cried another little hobbit voice.

"No, there were _three _Kings! I remember, he told us the story at his last birthday!"

"What about _queens_?" asked Rosie Cotton, her little brow furrowed. "Isn't there a queen with golden hair living in a faraway forest?"

An utter clamor rose from the circle of little hobbits, all disagreeing on the number of birthdays kings had and golden-haired forests, until Bilbo had to clear his throat very loudly to get the children to form a semblance of silence once more.

"Well, there _is _a queen, Rosie, but I believe the one you're speaking of is an elf, and she doesn't take part in this particular story—as for number of kings, I suppose you're all confusing yourselves with the different dwarf-lords. There was one Thorin Oakenshield, and his heirs were two princes—"

Yet again, the tremulous silence Bilbo's voice had provided broke once more, and the children began commenting on this new piece of information to their neighbors, tossing in poorly-formed theories on Bilbo's tale from previous tellings, quite ignoring the fact that poor Bilbo would hardly be able to tell them his story with such rabble going on.

"Two princes? Were they strong and tall or just ordinary dwarves?"

"Ordinary dwarves _are_ strong and tall! And extraordinarily great in battle!" came Frodo's voice over the din, sounding almost scandalized at the idea that any dwarf could be ordinary.

"But didn't the dwarves _lose _in the final battle?"

"Yes, didn't they all die?"

"No, just the King died, and the princes!"

"They _died?!_"

"Of course they died!" Bilbo barked above the babel, surprising himself with how angry he suddenly sounded—and as his eyes met the children's, it seemed that he had surprised them, too. Biting his bottom lip, he exhaled, and sank a little back into his chair. Though he didn't look it, he was growing older, and progressively sillier, too. _If I'm not as mad as the Sackville-Baggins think I am, I certainly will be, _he thought gloomily. Taking another deep breath, he let out a soft, sad laugh. "Well—they _did_ die," he admitted to the children, and their looks of fearful shock softened to sullenness. "But they lived, too, and they lived brilliantly!" Bilbo smiled sheepishly, and the children brightened considerably.

"Tell us, Bilbo," whispered Frodo, and the other youths nodded vigorously. "Tell us the stories, please!"

"All of them?"

"All of them!"

A great wonderful laugh found its way out of Bilbo's mouth. "Well, that'll take quite a while—and I'm not too sure if _I _even know all of them!"

But then he began, and the Storyteller of the Shire wove such adventures. From early in the afternoon to dinner-time, he would tell them, and it was only at the urging of their parents did the children go home, and they would be complaining violently at how Bilbo had not finished yet. Yet they knew he would be there tomorrow, and they knew he would keep telling them.

"Really, Mr Bilbo—you should pen a book about all this![4] About all your adventures!" Merry and Frodo would say excitably after he had finished his storytelling for the day—they and Sam and Pippin were always the last to leave his side after his tales were done, and on that particular eve, they were all nodding vigorously as they accompanied him and Bilbo home. And Bilbo would laugh and say something to the extent of "maybe I shall, my boys"—but for now, his daily storytelling would continue, and the children would be there to listen. Listen to the lovely stories of the friends who lived, and the friends who died.

Yet they would always stay alive to the children. And as long as the children listened, they were alive to Bilbo, too.

So the Storyteller of the Shire he became.

* * *

_[1]: i've had a bit of trouble with the exact date of the occurrence of this tale—it's been stated in the books that frodo was extremely close friends with dearest merry and pippin in his youth, but is twelve years apart from merry and sam and twenty-two with pippin, so it's been sort of difficult for me to place exactly when this story begins, as to be able to include our fearsome four. so i've taken some artistic liberties with ages and dates. anyway, at the occurrence of this story, frodo has lived with bilbo for a some years, and will be written as maybe a human twelve or thirteen-year-old. sam and merry will both be portrayed as slightly younger than frodo, around the human age of nine. pippin will be very young indeed—probably around the human age of five or six. maybe if anyone wishes to help me out with a plausible year for this story to take place, i'd love to hear your suggestions!_

_[2]: lobelia had a son named lotho, who, during the war of the ring, actually became an accomplice of saruman and traded him pipe-weed (good gracious, lobelia—you should have watched out who your son hung out with). he even sorta-kinda took over the shire and industrialized it, and was basically a huge tool (which is why i'm kind of writing him as a big butthole). he eventually was murdered by gríma wormtongue and might have been eaten by him, too. ouch. (lobelia was imprisoned during this whole thing—she hated saruman.)_

_[3]: as i mentioned before, merry is ten years pippin's senior, so i thought he might have acted as his big brother figure while pippin's elder sisters were off being busy young hobbit lasses. and i think the idea of a chubby toddler pippin cuddled by dear merry is adorable._

_[4]: and he did._


	2. a prank

ii: a prank

Even in the later hours of the next afternoon, the skies were still deep blue and blazing, and Bilbo had taken to fanning himself with the large Sunday bonnet Lobelia had thrown to the ground when she came to complain (rather raucously) about Bilbo's storytelling an hour earlier. "She made it out like I was detailing to them the Battle of Gladden Fields[1] in all its gory glory!" he muttered mulishly. "And no, Merry, I shan't be telling you children _that _bit of Middle-earth history any time soon!" he added as the young hobbit opened his mouth.

It was very nearly dinner-time, and it was only Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Samwise at gathered at his chair under the elm in the corner of the marketplace at that point, after all the other children's parents pulled them home. Merry had been reading out from one of Bilbo's well-thumbed books on the different peoples of Middle-earth to Pippin (who was spending the afternoon happily gorging himself on a large pasty), utilizing several rather shamelessly stereotypical accents for each of the sections detailing the different races. Bilbo noted that his "elven accent" was almost horrendously posh, while his "orc accent" sounded more like oliphaunt blubbering. Frodo, meanwhile, was recounting Lobelia's dramatic tirade (he had been present at her arrival, and was worryingly amused by her fury at the fact that Bilbo was "encouraging the pollution of the fair minds of children with despicable accounts of _adventures_") to Sam, who had just arrived from weeding the Bag End garden.

"And when Bilbo adamantly refused to give in to apologizing for giving us such wonderful stories, the old hoot gasped like a crow, threw down her hat, and called him an 'utterly disgraceful elf-friend of a hobbit!' and marched away!" Frodo finished with a dramatic flourish, and Pippin, who had grown somewhat bored of Merry's reading, clapped vigorously from Meriadoc's lap. Sam, however, was caught between feelings of disgruntlement at the idea of "elf-friend" being used as a derogatory remark, and shock at such ill treatment of Master Bilbo.

"I do so wish that other hobbits didn't think so strangely of elves," he said mournfully, rubbing off a patch of dried soil from his thumbnail. "From all Mr Bilbo's told us, they're nothin' but pure old _wonderful_—with lots of wise and brave and strong thrown in!"

"Now Sam, lad, I wouldn't go so far as calling them so scrupulously perfect!" said Bilbo with a slight laugh, and he set Lobelia's bonnet down as he smiled. "I suppose it may seem that way, from what I've said about Elrond and his kin, yet they are hardly flawless! Why, upon my very first entrance into the valley of Rivendell, they called me fat and mocked Thorin's beard.[2] And the Elvenking of Mirkwood was not always the most amiable of folk—the Company can tell you that firsthand!" He paused for a moment, wondering whether or not to add a warning to never take elven humor for foolishness.

Before he could decide, Frodo's voice piped up in a lazy sort of manner—the kind of sanguinity born of hot afternoons spent with dear friends. "Didn't you say that the Company once played a horrible trick on the elves in Rivendell[3], Bilbo? Tell us about that!"

At the very sound of the word "trick," Merry and Pippin's heads turned simultaneously—it seemed that the idea of a well-played out prank was irresistible even to one as young as Pippin. _Bother_, Bilbo thought darkly at the sight of the pair's shared interest in mischief. _I'll be confounded if these two don't grow up even more devious than Frodo_. But nonetheless, he let out another laugh.

"Well, _that _particular instance was dreamed up by the two youngest members of our Company, the never-cheerless Fíli and Kíli," he chortled, the memory resurfacing as bright as day. "It was rather a sight, I can tell you that—the fair elves of Rivendell, covered in soot and bacon crisps."

"Bacon and soot!?" cried Merry with sudden zeal, nearly toppling little Pippin out of his lap with excitement. "Fili and Kili must be _dreadful_ masterminds, Mr Bilbo! Tell us, what were they like?"

"Now that I think of it, Meriadoc, I'd wager that you and Master Peregrin'll grow up to resemble them _appallingly_," Bilbo said with a sort of sad chuckle. "The best of brothers, they were, as might have been guessed, and heirs of Durin, as I think I've mentioned. Yet, though princes they were in name, they were hardly as kingly as their uncle! They were always the merriest of our company, and never failed to fight on—perhaps their youth was their greatest quality." _And their darkest downfall_, a quiet voice added inside Bilbo's head, and he felt something in his belly shrivel. He had not seen them die, after Thorin had fallen, yet he had seen their bodies, and he had seen their hair. Kíli's chestnut and Fíli's gold, all tangled and matted with the blood of goblins and each other, peeking out from under the mantle Balin had covered their bodies with as they lay, side-by-side, among the fallen of the Battle of Five Armies. He had seen their hair laid out and braided by Ori's gentle hand, spread across their royal-blue hoods as they were laid into the earth, side-by-side, under the mountain and beside their uncle.

And all of a sudden, the greying hobbit looked up to see Merry's hair, and Pippin's—tossed about in messy ringlets, nearly the same shade of honey-brown, and he prayed with all his heart that he would never have to see their hair as he had seen Kíli's chestnut and Fíli's gold.

Frodo's eyes shifted uneasily from Bilbo's visage to what exactly he seemed to be staring at, and he understood the sudden, drawn look on his elder cousin's face. _It must be miserable for him, sometimes,_ he thought, biting his lip. He knew of the deaths of Durin's youngest, yet he never really put them into perspective before. And now he was seeing painful lines on Bilbo's kindly face at the sight of his inseparable young cousins, and he understood. Without another warning, Frodo let out a brisk (if not rather forced) laugh. "Brilliant, they were, weren't they, Bilbo? Fíli and Kíli! Go on—tell us about that delightful trick they pulled off! I'd quite enjoy the idea of Elrond covered in bacon fat—not to mean any disrespect towards Lord Elrond," he added as a bit of an afterthought, hoping most dearly never to cross the Lord of Rivendell.

At the sound of Frodo's voice, Bilbo blinked, and the misty sort of sorrow that had clouded his eyes faded away. "My greatest apologies!" he managed to say with a laugh, and he straightened himself up with some difficulty in his chair. "It most certainly is hot today—but if that is the story that you four wish to hear today, then I shall tell it." Glee filled the grins of the four hobbit youths once more, and they hurried to their usual cross-legged seats at Bilbo's feet in anticipation for another grand adventure. "Now, it was maybe the fifth or sixth night we had stayed in Rivendell, and though Balin had negotiated for the meals made for the Company to be made of more bread and meat than your usual elven fare, they were still a great deal more 'health-conscious' than Fíli and Kíli would prefer! So the two princes-in-exile hatched a rather crackpot plan…"

* * *

"Are we _really_ doing it?!" came Ori's anguished whisper from somewhere behind Fíli's back. "What if they catch us? Do elves even _need_ to sleep?"

"Wouldn't think so; I could hear them singing from the moment I slept to the instant I awoke—it's like they're birds!" Kíli replied flippantly (and far too loudly to be called a proper whisper) from Ori's left. "It's dismally dark, Fee—can't we bring a faggot along if we're going to be raiding the elven pantries by moonlight?"

"You'd set the whole of the Last Homely House alight before we'd be able to find any proper meat, Kee!" hissed Fíli, suddenly throwing out an arm to catch Ori before he walked into a pillar. "Ori, we only recruited you for this particular expedition because if the elves spot us, we could just shove all the blame on you, and you're too pitiable for the elves to torture you for _too_ long." A squeak of dismay erupted from an Ori-shaped silhouette.

"Where _are _the elven pantries, anyway?" mused Kíli, squinting in the dark—the little light upon the scene was filtering through the high trees that framed the Last Homely House, and as sharp as Kíli's eyes were when focusing upon a target, they were no sharper than Ori's slingshot at nightfall. "Y'know, I never realized that elves even actually _ate_ food before seeing them do it! I always thought they—that they just _existed_…"

Ori, quite unaware of Kíli's theorizations of elven eating habits, continued babbling on (without being heard, of course). "If the elves catch us, we'll be tossed out like old cheese! Or _worse_—what if _Thorin_ catches us!?"

"I'd say that he would look the other way," Fíli said distractedly, a smile teasing (unseen in the dark) at the edge of his lips as he grabbed his two companions and pulled them down the hall. "As much as Thorin seems to respect Lord Elrond, I'd say he's been getting antsy—holed up here with pointy-eared elves grinning at him at every turn—wotcher, Kee, you're going to trip over a stair step." He had said it too late, and Kíli let out a stifled yelp as he stubbed his toe and crashed into Ori, the pair of them sprawling over the staircase in the darkness. Letting out a long-suffering sigh, Fíli hooked his arms underneath Ori's and Kíli's respective elbows and pulled, until the two of them were standing (and grumbling scattered Khuzdûl curses), none worse for the wear.

"Well, I wouldn't blame him _too _badly!" muttered Kíli in a low voice as they began creeping up the staircase once again. "They _are _trying to poison us with all these strange herbs that they pile on the side of what meat they give us!"

"_Poison_ you?" came a fair voice that none of them had heard before. "I assure you, we were trying to do nothing of the sort." The trio, quite startled, all took an instinctive step back, and promptly tumbled down the stairs once more. Groaning from the bottom of the staircase, the three dwarves looked up at the top of the staircase to see a strange sort of light, as if moonlight suddenly decided to declare its constant presence. It took more than a few seconds for their eyes to adjust and see that it was not, in fact, a _light,_ but a lady—

—and an _elven_ lady, at that. Ori whimpered from somewhere by Fíli's left leg.

"See, see, I knew it, I knew it! We've been found, caught, discovered, and now she's going to turn us into dust and we're all going to—" The elf's eyes found Ori's, and his voice died in his throat. (Elf or not, her gaze made his breath hitch.)

A moment of silence later, though, the elf gave the three marauding dwarves a wide smile, and they suddenly realized that they were still crumpled on top of each other at the bottom of the staircase. Exchanging slightly horrified glances, Fíli and Kíli shot up like daisies, pulling a somewhat dazed Ori along with them.

In a sudden spurt of boldness, Fíli managed to summon the best impression of Thorin he could muster. "At the sight of your expression—er—milady, I find it imperative to insist that we _weren't_ planning any mischief, not at all, Lady—er—"

"Arwen," the elf said, and suddenly her expression was grave and serious and queenly, and Fíli felt very much like a field mouse in comparison. "You may address me as Lady Arwen, Master Fíli son of Dís. And not to worry, I assume no mischief. I do wonder, at why you three have decided to take such a midnight stroll. Are you in need of anything?" The slightest touch of humor was twinkling in her stern eyes.

"Did she say she was Lady _Arwen?!_" hissed Ori frantically under his breath, pushing Kíli in front of him. "Lady _Arwen_? Isn't that—isn't _she_—"

"I can hear you full well, Master Ori," Arwen went on gently, and she began descending the staircase to meet the three dwarves. "But it would have been much simpler for you to ask me directly, if you were unsure who my father is. Now—may I ask you three again?" Reaching the bottom of the staircase, they were all suddenly aware how _tall_ she was, and how _small_ they were. "Are you in need of anything?" she repeated, and she smiled once more—yet this smile was full of a mischief that rivaled their own.

"No!" Kíli blurted out suddenly, turning scarlet as soon as he heard the words leave his mouth. "I mean—pardon, Lady Arwen, but er—no, we weren't in need of anything at all!"

"Quite right, brother," Fíli interjected hastily, nodding in feverish agreement. "As I was about to say before—we were simply—we were just—er—"

"_Looking for a chamber pot!_" squealed Ori, unable to contain his nerves any longer. In utter horror, Fíli and Kíli turned to gawk at their companion, their wide eyes conveying every scream that they found their throats too dry to emit. _A chamber pot? Ori, what in Mahal's name would possess you to say chamber pot?! _

Meanwhile, Lady Arwen was surveying the scene with a sort of stoic amusement only manageable by elves. _I must have Ada invite dwarves more often to Rivendell_, she decided, smiling inwardly. _They really do add such color. Whether they'd accept the invitation, however_…

Letting out an earnest, musical laugh, Arwen shook her beautiful head and beamed warmly down at the dwarven marauders. "My apologies, my friends; I have used you badly. There is no need for explanation, nor any sort of worry on your account. Whatever you may be looking for, I shall leave you be to find it." Procuring a white candle from the depths of her robes (somehow, it was already flaming, even as she held it in her pale palm), she offered it to Fíli, who took it in a sort of awed stupor. "Bear in mind, however—you passed the kitchens, two doors down."

And with that, Lady Arwen bowed and departed, quicker than a leaf on the wind.

Fíli and Kíli gaped at her absence.

Ori, meanwhile, was spluttering in an utter explosion of pent-in stress. "She… you—I—_chamber pots_!"

And with _that,_ Ori skittered down the halls of the Last Homely house like a frightened cat, and when the rest of the Company found him the following morning, he was wrapped in his knitted blanket at the side of the fading embers of the previous night's fire, and he blankly denied that anything prankstery had ever occurred.

* * *

"Lady Arwen just _let them go_?" whispered Sam, his voice hushed and full of awed wonder. (If he was not infatuated with elves before this story, he most certainly was now. Not only were they fair and graceful and wise and strong, but they had a sense of _humor_, too?)

"She did more than just _let them go_!" cried Merry—he and Pippin had been held spellbound up to that very moment. Now they were alight with reverence for the elven lady, their eyes huge and glassy. "It was like she _advocated_ their mischief! Poor Ori, though—chamber pots, indeed!"

"Now, my lads," Bilbo went on, smiling good-humoredly. "If there's anything persons manage to overlook about elves, it's their humor. I don't remember a meal I had at Lord Elrond's table that was not entertained by his—and his children's—incredible wit."

"Go on, Bilbo!" exclaimed Frodo, quite wrapped up in the story already. "Please, do continue!"

"I shall, my boy, don't be hasty! Now—here we have left off with our princes of mischief, Fíli and Kíli, and Lord Elrond's well-stocked pantry, quite at their mercy…"

* * *

"So—" Fíli began, his voice low and imbued with sudden courage from their encounter with Lady Arwen, as the pair of brothers stood staring at the extensive elven pantry. "Shall we take our pick, Kee?" He shot his brother a grin in the shadows, and saw that Kíli's eyes were bright and dancing. "What do you say—what shall we swipe?"

The glow of Arwen's candle illuminating the depths of the pantry, Kíli's gaze darted from barrel to barrel, from stockpiles of cheese to towers of some sort of flat pastry-bread that he did not recognize—until his eyes met the two largest pork bellies he had ever seen.

The pair exchanged another dark grin, and their hair gleaming chestnut and gold in the candlelight, their arms were full of pork before they spoke another word.

"Wake up, you great, fat ninnies!" Kíli cried as soon as the two entered the pavilion they were sharing with Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Ori, Dori, and Nori. With a great heave, the brothers pulled the glorious pork bellies to the side of the fire, where they found Ori curled up like a kitten, fiercely ignoring them (all the while muttering to himself in a rather frightening way). With identical, excitable grins, Fíli and Kíli made sure to leap onto the backs of all who were sleeping.

Bombur awoke with a reproachful groan as the heel of Fíli's boot pushed into his plump shoulder, rolling like a large ham onto his stomach before pulling himself up. "Oi—do I smell _pork belly_?" the rotund dwarf exclaimed, going from drowsy to hungrily alert in a trice.

"Y'sure it isn't just yourself that you're smellin', Bombur—" came Bofur's lilting voice, sounding rather disgruntled (but for good reason—only moments ago, Kíli had tripped and accidentally landed on his face), but only until he sniffed, and realized that the smell was not his brother. "Did you two—actually manage it?" And then he saw the glow of pork by the fire, and let out a whoop that awoke nearly everyone else in the pavilion.

"Who's being murdered _now_?" moaned Dori, sitting up straight and rubbing his eyes with the back of his sleeve. "Hm—has someone got pork? Ori, what're you _doing_, lad?"

"Food! Food, I smell food!"

"We've done it! We swiped something huge!" Kíli sang over the din.

"Are we being thrown out? Has Bilbo gotten lost again?"

"Why are we all awake?!"

"Oh, shut up, all of you!" cried Fíli enthusiastically, and his sudden resemblance to Thorin made the seven other dwarves hush almost immediately. "Here, we have what I believe is called 'a Midnight Feast,' my companions. I wouldn't hesitate to call upon Oin, Gloin, Balin, Dwalin, our hobbit friend, and Thorin from the other pavilion, but I have the strangest feeling that they might prevent the second phase of our mischief-making."

"Which, if I may come in, Fee, is the _fun_ part!" laughed Kíli, joining his brother under the glow of the fire. Linking arms, the two pranksters ushered their companions closer, and began to describe to them just what, exactly, the fun part was.

The very next morn, Lord Elrond entered the dining hall of the Last Homely House, only to have half a dozen bacon crisps fall atop his fair head, and to slip grievously over soot-covered floors.

The fact that the Company was _not_ evicted from the Last Homely House that day was quite a miracle (or, more likely, was due to the intervention of a Lady Arwen who thought the whole spectacle quite funny).

* * *

"You see, my lads," Bilbo managed to say through roars of laughter, "I believe neither Fíli or Kíli had the ability to look upon Elrond at the dinner-table without bursting into fits of utter mirth until we left Rivendell! It was due to the grace of Lady Arwen, I suspect, that her father did not look upon them with any sort of malice."

"A right shameful waste of that pork belly, though!" said a trodden Sam, curled up next to Frodo, who was bent over with laughter. "And it must've been horrid, to have to clean up all that soot!"

"Oh, unwind a bit, Sam!" Merry giggled, wiping his eyes as he pulled Pippin back onto his lap (the child had been so struck with peals of wild glee that he had completely fallen from his perch on Merry's knee). "It was a _marvelous_ prank!"

Bilbo's face softened into a gentle sort of peace. "Worry not, Samwise," he said, his voice kindly and just the slightest bit amused. "Most of the pork belly was feasted upon that same night, and much of it wrapped in oilcloth and shoved into the Company's rucksacks, and 'twas only the crisps that were used in the prank—and I do believe that our Bombur ate those, too, after their service was done."

"And they're _elves,_ Sam!" cried Frodo, lazily slinging his arm around Sam's shoulder. "I do think they can take care of themselves, right, Bilbo?"

"Yes, my boys—they were fair and dandy within a trice," said Bilbo smilingly, reclining into his chair once more. "They had our dwarven princes get down upon their knees and scrub away, of course, but it was done and clean within an afternoon. Even _Thorin_ was mild about the whole fiasco—he merely ordered Fíli and Kíli to do what our elven hosts had said, thus shaming them well enough!"

"I do wish I could've met them someday!" Merry exclaimed suddenly, and Pippin nodded in agreement. "It would've been fantastic to meet royals who were the best of tricksters, too, right, Pip?"

Suddenly horridly uncomfortable, Frodo rose and took his elder cousin's arm. "Already dinner-time, isn't it, Bilbo!" he declared, his voice slightly strained at the sight of Bilbo's expression. He was suddenly acutely aware that Bilbo was very old, and though the arm that he had taken had not yet become frail, his cousin's eyes were melting as he saw Pippin stand and babble to Merry, and at Merry's joy in laughing back at him. "It's best we'd start getting home, before it grows dark, right? Sam, would you mind terribly if you could drop off Mrs Lobelia's bonnet before you come back to Bagshot Row[4]?"

With an odd, sensible sort of look, Sam nodded, bowed, and departed with the bonnet, and Frodo could have sworn he saw what seemed to be understanding on the younger hobbit's face.

Meanwhile, Merry stretched luxuriously, as the sun faded fast over the hills of the Shire. "C'mon, Pip—we'll see you on the morrow, Mr Bilbo!—I better get you home to Uncle Paladin[5], aye? Here, have an apple before dinner-time," he added, and pulled a scarlet fruit out of his trouser-pocket, offering it to little Pippin, who took it and began munching with gusto. "Mind you, I was saving that for myself—but anyhow, goodbye, Mr Bilbo, Frodo!"

And with that, Meriadoc Brandybuck took Pippin by the hand, laughing at the sound of his little cousin's intense enjoyment of his apple as they left the elm tree in the corner of the market, Pippin's little shoulder rubbing Merry's elbow as they left. From then on, Frodo was rather aware that wherever Merry was, Pippin would follow, and always side-by-side.

Eyeing Bilbo, Frodo bit his lip as his cousin left his chair. "Come, Frodo—" Bilbo said, and his voice had that same, sad softness to it, like a mother speaking to a crying child. "It is nearly dinner-time. Let us go home."

They walked, slowly and unspeaking, back through the Hobbiton hills to Bagshot Row, the silence between them gentle, until they reached the Bag End garden, and Frodo paused at the gate.

"Bilbo," he began, and he found that his voice was wavering. "How did Fíli and Kíli die?"

"Together," came the answer, and the voice that answered was quietly peaceful. "Fíli first, according to Balin—a mace straight to the head that was meant for Thorin. Kíli followed—not far behind, a goblin arrow to his chest. They were found afterwards, side-by-side and holding bloody hands." The old hobbit's own hand found Frodo's wrist.

"Then—if telling such stories about them makes you sad, Bilbo, telling the stories to Merry and Pippin—why do you do it?"

And Bilbo smiled.

"Friends die, Frodo—they leave and do not come back. But the memories stay, and while the two dwarven pranksters rest in the Halls of Waiting, and I in Middle-earth, those memories do not die. And they make me glad." Bilbo paused, then opened the gate for Frodo. "I do worry, though—if Merry and Pippin ever had met Fíli and Kíli, I'd say that not the Shire, nor Erebor, would ever recover from their chaos! Now, let us go in—there is a lovely pork belly waiting for us in the kitchen."

* * *

[1]: the battle of gladden fields was the infamous battle where elendil the tall was killed and where isildur cut the ring from the hand of sauron. as bilbo was quite the learned hobbit, as well as spending much time with more worldly residents of middle-earth, i doubt that he wouldn't have known of it.

[2]: "Mind Bilbo doesn't eat all the cakes!" they called. "He is too fat to get through key-holes yet!"

[3]: this particular deviation from book-canon (well, can it be called a deviation? we never really got to see what the dwarves did while holed up in lovely rivendell) was inspired from an interview with the cast that said we'd see a dreadful prank orchestrated by the dwarves in rivendell in the extended dvd version.

[4]: bagshot row was the hobbiton equivalent of a street—the very street that the gamgees and bagginses lived upon.

[5]: paladin took was pippin's father, and merry's maternal uncle.


End file.
